A Bronx Tale (1993)
Country: US
Technical: col 121m
Director: Robert De Niro
Cast: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Brancato, Taral Hicks, Kathrine Narducci
Synopsis:
In the 60s, a bus driver's son looks up to the mobster who works out of the bar two doors down. Both men end up having an equally strong influence on his life as he grows up.
Review:
Palminteri's play scores through exceeding expectations in its play with genre conventions. So similar are the setting and early scenes that we sigh at the prospect of another Goodfellas, but then the film diverges and focuses instead on light and shade. The kid has a loving family, his dad doesn't swear and doesn't slap his wife around; the gangster knows when to keep his distance, gives the kid sound advice, etc. Again, in its handling of the racial politics of the time, the film doesn't give in to commonplace, showing how hard it is for young Calogero to distance himself from his ne'er-do-well friends. There are cracks, of course, some clunkiness in the storytelling, and continuity lapses: there's talk of a baby early on, but we never see one, and then the mother disappears completely from the 1968 half of the movie, without explanation. Still, both Palminteri and De Niro deserve plaudits for their honesty and discretion in the handling of the material, and in Brancato they could not have found someone looking more like De Niro's son! There's a playlist of sixties classics which can be more than window dressing and counterpoint the action in subtler ways.
Country: US
Technical: col 121m
Director: Robert De Niro
Cast: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Brancato, Taral Hicks, Kathrine Narducci
Synopsis:
In the 60s, a bus driver's son looks up to the mobster who works out of the bar two doors down. Both men end up having an equally strong influence on his life as he grows up.
Review:
Palminteri's play scores through exceeding expectations in its play with genre conventions. So similar are the setting and early scenes that we sigh at the prospect of another Goodfellas, but then the film diverges and focuses instead on light and shade. The kid has a loving family, his dad doesn't swear and doesn't slap his wife around; the gangster knows when to keep his distance, gives the kid sound advice, etc. Again, in its handling of the racial politics of the time, the film doesn't give in to commonplace, showing how hard it is for young Calogero to distance himself from his ne'er-do-well friends. There are cracks, of course, some clunkiness in the storytelling, and continuity lapses: there's talk of a baby early on, but we never see one, and then the mother disappears completely from the 1968 half of the movie, without explanation. Still, both Palminteri and De Niro deserve plaudits for their honesty and discretion in the handling of the material, and in Brancato they could not have found someone looking more like De Niro's son! There's a playlist of sixties classics which can be more than window dressing and counterpoint the action in subtler ways.
Country: US
Technical: col 121m
Director: Robert De Niro
Cast: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Brancato, Taral Hicks, Kathrine Narducci
Synopsis:
In the 60s, a bus driver's son looks up to the mobster who works out of the bar two doors down. Both men end up having an equally strong influence on his life as he grows up.
Review:
Palminteri's play scores through exceeding expectations in its play with genre conventions. So similar are the setting and early scenes that we sigh at the prospect of another Goodfellas, but then the film diverges and focuses instead on light and shade. The kid has a loving family, his dad doesn't swear and doesn't slap his wife around; the gangster knows when to keep his distance, gives the kid sound advice, etc. Again, in its handling of the racial politics of the time, the film doesn't give in to commonplace, showing how hard it is for young Calogero to distance himself from his ne'er-do-well friends. There are cracks, of course, some clunkiness in the storytelling, and continuity lapses: there's talk of a baby early on, but we never see one, and then the mother disappears completely from the 1968 half of the movie, without explanation. Still, both Palminteri and De Niro deserve plaudits for their honesty and discretion in the handling of the material, and in Brancato they could not have found someone looking more like De Niro's son! There's a playlist of sixties classics which can be more than window dressing and counterpoint the action in subtler ways.